Isekai Ukulele

Splash screen created by SugarDogStudios

Latest Updates

  • Let there be art!

    After a year of existence, I finally got a proper logo and branding for this project! Big shout out to SugarDogStudios for working with me to come up with the design. I was stubbornly resisting using AI and hoped to find a local artist that I could rely on, and she really came through! I need to do a little work to integrate it here on the site, but I’m super happy to finally have proper art for all my social channels.

    Generic Isekai Protag-kun was the vibe I asked for

    Plus extra applause for Cheesecakes from the Uke Tribe Discord for making and sending the awesome bed sign over for me that became the basis of the logo! She’s the one who made those little ukulele’s I put on the bed as decor, and if you tune in from now on there’s a cool new sign to keep them company. Not sure if you can tell from the videos, but they’re hand-sewn ornaments made of felt. I think the original idea was to go on a Christmas tree or something, but they just happened to be a perfect accent for my little stream.

    Speaking of streams, I managed to make through the month without calling in sick, which was honestly the main goal. I’ve talked a lot about planning here, and the thing to do once you’ve made a plan is to execute it and see how accurate reality is against your projections. I came up with a schedule that I thought I could keep, and I was able to keep it! Being satisfied with that means I don’t need to fret as much over things like follower counts. I don’t know enough to make those proper goals, so any growth is basically bonus points.

    And there have been many bonus points! I somehow gained as many new Youtube subscribers in this month as I did in all of last year. I think a major part of it was that big guide to noodling aka improvisation on ukulele that I created. That seemed to be the most impactful activity. I have been trying to keep up with doing Youtube Shorts, and of course the daily streams too though, so it’s kind of hard to say exactly what the source of new subscribers is.

    But the number did shoot up after sharing that tutorial. Because of that I’m working on another one, but it’s also going to be on a rather difficult “intermediate” level skill that I’m still far from mastering, so, that’s taking some time to write. Its fun to see number go up, but also being able to reach more people more effectively with my music is kind of the goal.

    Twitch Happens

    Twitch growth has been slow but steady – started from 0 and now at 16 followers! I’m pretty sure at least half of those are real people who have actually talked to me, but it’s not quite the same as when I basically knew who over half of my Youtube subscribers were.

    Twitch strikes me as a much more social activity than I had initially anticipated. My idea was that if I am ever able to be upright again for extended periods of time, that I want to gain experience performing so that I could hold my own on stage at various venues around me, like restaurants or bars.

    But streaming on Twitch is much more interactive: chat is there to, well, chat. It feels sort of natural to latch on to whoever decides to say anything because otherwise… you don’t really know if anyone is actually there. At least, I’m not able to easily monitor my viewer counts given my current setup.

    I’m a little jealous of all the fancy overlays and chat commands and emotes that the bigger streamers have, but we’ll see. I have some medical stuff coming up this month that will tell me whether I should hold hope about getting better, or double down on the whole Twitch thing. I’d kind of rather not be another minion of big Bezos, but it kind of is the place to be. As if Alphabet tube is any better.

    There’s also the aspect of getting to know other streamers. Raids, where chat is forwarded to a new streamer when one is about to end theirs, is a whole thing. I’ve been watching more streamers recently to get a better idea of how it works, and there’s a sort of “pay it forward” mentality. People forward their chats to people they know. So like, hanging out in chat and getting to know streamers seems to be something worth doing. I honestly don’t know what button to push yet to do a raid, but also haven’t had the audience to make it worth doing either.

    “Hanging out” to get to know people is not a thing I do naturally for fun either. Part of it was that seeing normal people made me bitter so I learned to be ok with being alone in my room. Don’t mind me, I’ll just be playing uke and watching anime. But also I guess I’m a classic introvert in that it takes energy for me to be around people. I can’t help trying to create mental models of everyone I encounter to predict their behavior and act appropriately to create the outcomes I desire. Sound exhausting? Yeah, it kind of is.

    It’s the same game with the videos, with the streams, with the social media posts… and honestly I’d just rather not. But if there is hope that I can get better, then I want to lay a foundation for to hit the ground running. And if there’s no hope that I can get better, then I also want to lay a foundation for success. So I guess I really rather would. Ugh. Work is always going to be work. But this is something that I can do. And, actually, I do typically enjoy being in the company of like minded people, so I guess it’s just something I need to embrace.

    The other channel I’ve been working on developing is Blue Sky, but I don’t really get it. I made a tik tok account but I somehow have an innate distaste for that platform and don’t really get it either. Well, plenty on my plate for now.

    I’ll be doing some medical travel in the middle of this month, but otherwise, you should be able to find me playing live weekdays on Twitch and Youtube! Come say hi

  • Re:Streaming – Starting my social life over again in another world from zero. 

    1/1/26 marked my very first stream on Twitch! Here’s to starting a new venture from nothing. Up the 3 followers already! Luckily I don’t need to return-by-death to try something new. I think it’ll be an interesting experience to see how far I can get in a year.

    Last year I started the YouTube channel, and though getting new subs wasn’t really the main point, I managed to get 34 subscribers which I think is pretty neat. I also think it’s neat that I feel like I know a majority of those subscribers from the various uke places online that I’ve been hanging out in. It’s never about the numbers, but the people behind the screen. 

    There are two ways to get good: experience and prescience. You can learn by doing, or you can learn by those who came before you. Streaming is definitely a new experience, and I’m revising my thoughts about it rather quickly.

    I asked some experienced streamers some questions and they told me to just “do what I love” and said not treat it like a job. Well, I kind of feel like the stuff I love is not necessarily what is going to lead me to my goals. I love playing music and watching anime, and I can indulge in that entirely fine without being on stream. I get where they’re coming from, but I strongly feel that I need to treat this like a job to get what I want out of it. I need to show up consistently, and I need to do things I don’t necessarily enjoy to reach the outcomes I desire.

    Art is a conversation, and talking to people who are only interested in talking about themselves gets boring. Being a musician means guiding your audience to feel certain ways. And finding an audience when you have none means showing up with something worth paying attention to. I strongly believe that I need to meet my audience at least half way.

    Case and point, I spent a day playing some of my favorite goth and emo songs. I had a great time, but I it really didn’t feel like it was quite right. I’d wager that if I kept grinding at it I might eventually find people who would like this kind of music on ukulele. You can get it if you really want, but you must try, try and try, try and try. Is this what I want to try so hard for?

    I don’t think so. My current idea is more about treating streaming as a proxy for busking. But one thing I realized yesterday is that the people who watch streamers actually want to interact with the personalities. It’s not like playing music on a busy sidewalk where people are in transit from point a to b. It’s a conscious decision to watch someone else do something entertaining, with the chance to talk with them.

    I’ve been watching other popular Music streaming channels, and I was surprised to see that a large part of the stream is often dedicated to talking. Then during the music parts people like to spam chat with emotes and walls of texts. It’s not really about the music as much as the chance to be seen.

    Its a curious thing. I wouldn’t mind participating in that form of culture, but I fear that setting up the back end to make those kinds of things happen will be very difficult given my difficulties with using a computer. In an ideal world, I would find a friend who would be willing to moderate my stream and help me build that back end. Well, first I’d need to build up my chat to be something that needs moderation.

    Further, I was approaching streaming as a proxy for gaining experience to become a restaurant musician. You know, the kind that plays music in the background while people eat lunch or dinner. There’s typically not a lot of crowd work involved in that type of thing.

    So how do I balance my intentions with the prevailing interests of the platform? I’m not sure. I’m not sure if I want to be a “streamer” as much as I want to be a “musician.” I guess the distinction would be that former connects with the audience through the streaming experience, while the latter connects through music. Its a matter of what skills you hone.

    Right now I think streaming as a means to an end. It is a venue that I can perform at as a musician given my current situation. Next month I have a medical thing coming up that will hopefully definitively determine if there’s an operation that might return me to normal, or if I’m just going to be like this for the foreseeable future. If by some miracle I do get better, I’ll get to reset again and try figure out where to go from there.

  • LIVE, from my bed!

    I’ve figured out the live stream situation, at least the bare bones to get started, and made myself a venue where I can be heard: isekaiukulele.com/live

    Tentative streaming schedule is M-F 2:30-5:30PM HST

    Guess who put all his skill points into music instead of art… anyone want to help??

    I have been taking singing lessons for a little under a year now, and I’m quite happy with the progress. That’s been a(n expensive but) very good time. I’ve learned so many things that I never even imagined before under the guidance of an experienced professional.

    While I plan to continue improving my skill, I feel like I’m at the point where I need to start gaining more experience performing in front of people. I actually think I’m quite ready yet, but I’m not sure that I’ll ever actually feel “ready” as I might imagine it. 

    Until now I’ve been mostly playing for my four bedroom walls, or for the camera where I can retry until I get a good take. It’s quite different when someone else is in front of you and listening intently. If I were a normal person I’d play the busking game and go outside to sing on a street corner where strangers can keep walking if they don’t want to hear. Unfortunately that’s not so easy for me to do.  

    Fortunately it just so happens we live in a day and age where there is a practical method to share one’s music across the world without taking a step outside of one’s room. So why not turn the camera on?

    Well, unlike a busy street where people are walking by anyway, the digital attention economy is extremely crowded. In this era, music has become entirely commoditized. All the world’s music is available at your fingertips with a simple search. AI spits out music that is increasingly becoming indistinguishable from artists with decades of experience. Why bother listening to an amateur stumble through their catalog? 

    If you turn the camera on, there’s no guarantee that anyone will come watch. And if people do click on you to watch, how can you deliver something worth their time? I feel like I need to do more than just show up. I need a strategy to gain attention, a reason to be heard.

    Well, that’s the game isn’t it? If I figure out how to win, I’ll share it here. Until then, I’m happy to be mostly ignored while I continue to hone my singing skills. Give me another year or two, and hopefully I’ll be somewhere good by then.

  • Matter over Mind

    So I found out that you don’t need 50 subscribers to stream live on YouTube. I guess that’s just a requirement for the mobile app or something. I still have a lot of issues to work out, but it’s all sorts of these little details that I don’t consider until I run into it as a problem. Like, somehow my eyes keep creeping up out of the frame XD

    And this is a perfect example of the “matter over mind” perspective I’d like to share. I thought I couldn’t do a thing, and so I didn’t. But the truth was, materially, it was possible. I just had to look closer at the actual situation. What the mind thinks is real is irrelevant. What is actually real if the material world we exist in. Matter is the prime substance. 

    In a similar way, the biggest thing I learned last year was that what I thought I wanted to do is not what I actually wanted to do. The mind is an unreliable narrator. 

    I used to be very goal oriented. Decide what you want, make a plan to get it, execute and refine until successful. Having the rug pulled from under my feet with no reason or recourse made me reevaluate my perspective. Despite having a very mind-first approach, it could do nothing to remedy my situation. I believed then and still firmly believe now that when there’s a will there’s a way. But there was nothing I wanted enough to push through the extreme difficulty and pain to obtain. My will was insufficient. And so I came to believe instead that will is a function of the brain – that is, of matter. 

    Case in point: I told my body to play music every day, and that I wanted to do instrumentals. I fully intended to do so. But when I picked up the uke, the body kept singing. Instead of focusing on transcribing anisong, which I thought I wanted to do but rarely pursued because it was a super frustrating process due to not being able to use a computer effectively, I’d learn to sing some new song that got stuck in my head instead. When it was pointed out that I seemed to just be singing a lot, I agreed and eventually just accepted that maybe what I really wanted to do is sing. And I’m quite happy with the outcome so far.  

    So I’ve been trying on the perspective that the body will do whatever it wants to, and the best thing to do is adapt the mindset accordingly. There are ways in which you can encourage the body to do things, but ultimately the body controls the mind. You are your body, and the mind is a reflection of your physical state. Some may call it fate, or soul, but I am currently a hardline materialist. What is real is material, all the way down. There’s a whole practical line of reasoning behind this, see the works of Daniel Dennett, and Michael Graziano’s Attention Schema Theory of Consciousness if interested in learning more.

    Many can and do train the body to reflect the wishes of the mind. For example, I’ve met many who dedicated their lives to making money and have found great financial success. Whether or not that leads to a happy life or inner fulfillment is a different question. We do the best we can with all we got. 

    In the past, if the mind wanted more than what the body could handle I’d say work hard and you can get there. You can get it if you really want, but you must try, try and try, try and try. I still believe in this adage. But now I say, well, maybe change the mind to reflect where the body is. Am I sure I really want it? If I don’t have it, in reality, I must admit I didn’t want it enough to try, try and try until I got it. In truth,  the body actually wanted something else. 

    The path of a solo singer is very different from that of the solo instrumentalist. I started this blog with a vision for how to create a platform for an instrumentalist. Now I have to pivot. It’s a little strange because I don’t feel super mentally compelled to walk this path – no bolt of inspiration or “good idea” appeared that I just have to explore further. But here we are. 

    I thought I felt perfectly fine being a recluse and not singing for anyone else. I just find myself at the foot of this mountain and it feels like the body wants to climb it. So the new theme for this year is how to find an audience for the aspiring singer-strummer. I know there are many people out there who also want to have their singing be heard, so perhaps I can still light a path to follow. 

  • Chapter 1 – A hikki-neet turns on his camera

    So, I want to be a streamer… 

    A decade ago I graduated with an MBA and was working hard as a development coordinator raising millions of dollars for a nonprofit organization. Then I got horrifically sick.

    I became bedridden in near constant agony, eventually had to move back in with my parents, and had to totally let go of being a highly proficient productive member of society. I had a lot of time while staring at my ceiling for contemplation and self reflection. Thus I embraced being a hikki-NEET loser (and watched a ton of anime). My physical condition has improved significantly after some treatment, but I’m still effectively bedridden and prone to random bouts of severe migraines. 

    For the uninitiated: “Hikki” is short for “hikkikomori” which is roughly translated as “social recluse” aka one who stays in their room all day and never touches grass. Sort of like a reddit mod (which I (un?)ironically was for a bit). “NEET” stands for Not in Education, Employment, or Training. Basically no job and no prospects for one. I mean, I am disabled, and trying to do real work often results in excruciating pain. So, there’s that.

    Still, these are rather derogatory terms, which became normalized in isekai (“other world”) anime where the adventure starts after the pathetic main character dies in an accident and gets reincarnated into a fantasy land with cheat powers and gets the girl(s) and saves the world.

    One of the big questions they asked as we trained to be the business leaders of the next generation was: what would you do with FU money? That is, the amount of money in your bank account that you would say F U to anyone who asked you to do something you didn’t want to. 

    Funnily enough, my answer is that I would probably want to play music, and video games, and watch all the anime. Which is pretty close to what I do now. If I actually had money I’d have the family and security and even more musical toys, but eh, if I don’t look on the bright side it’s easy to fall into the pit of despair. Maybe one day those things will come.

    So I have been playing the music. Lots of it. Last year I launched this blog and a YouTube channel to document my progress. I can’t say it was a resounding success, but I definitely learned a lot along the way. It was a step back toward being “productive” which is such a deeply ingrained mindset that it’s hard to ignore. I don’t work and I still get to eat, but the fragility of the situation is hard to ignore. My parents won’t be around to take care of me forever. 

    If I had to work, I’d want to be a musician. If that’s the case, I should start preparing for that now. And so I blog. And make videos. And have decided to try be social and start streaming… right now I’m only playing in a few discord channels I’m comfortable in, but soon enough I’ll make the jump to Twitch. 

    I’d kind of rather just stay on Youtube, but apparently you need 50 subscribers to start streaming, and I didn’t manage to find that many in all of last year. But, I didn’t really care about that either. I feel like I would recognize the face (or ukulele!) of about half of my subscribers, and that feels better to me than a big number.  You get what you ask for.

    I started an account on bluesky today. Guess I’m really asking for it…

  • The Big List of AniSong

    The plan is coming along, slowly but surely. I’m typically the time to prefer to Aim, Fire, Repeat, but I recognize that sometimes Fire, Scramble, Aim can lead to success. That’s how I started this project, and it was a good way to test my capacity. I’ve learned a lot about myself since it started. But it’s not how I want to continue, so I’m taking the time I need to put together what I feel is the best way for me to ensure my long term success.

    This means a lot of thinking, and drafting up a written plan execute. While I do this, I naturally like to listen to music. During a break I happened to watch Project A-ko, and really liked a song, so I thought I’d add the ending theme to my anime songs playlist. One thing led to another, and the playlist ballooned from a bit over an hour to over six hours long.

    Here it is for your listening pleasure:

    Click the dots to play on Spotify, find the YouTube playlist here and full track list below



    The rules were simple:

    1. I must have actually watched the anime, and preferably liked it.
    2. Multiple entries from an artist or series should be minimized.
    3. I should like the song, to the point of being willing to create an instrumental arrangement.

    Very few songs broke rule one – none the first half, but there were a couple songs I liked much more than the show itself (*stares at domestic girlfriend*). How much I liked the show did play a big part in the selection. I was able to keep most duplicates down to two, though Creepy Nuts managed to sneak a third banger in. Finally I’ve said before that this project was initially intended to be about anime song instrumentals, and this is basically the pool of music I was thinking of drawing from. If you have any requests, I will consider giving them priority, though I am currently in another one-string training arc so it may take some time. No guarantees.

    Actually, I could probably add another couple hours of music if I tried – especially if I go out of my way to watch some popular things I just happen to not have seen, and ease the dupe rules for the popular (and long running) shounen’s. I don’t watch a lot of anime movies, so there’s another source of quite a lot I could easily draw from. In fact I’ve probably only seen three or four Miyazaki films ever, and those could easily add an hour of awesome music alone. And there’s the vast sea of mediocre isekai whose songs I might want to revisit someday.

    But what, six hours isn’t long enough?!

    I also like that I get to share some of the music of some maybe more obscure shows that I really enjoy. And if anyone out there is already familiar, maybe it’s nice to hear that someone else likes what you like.

    I ran into the wall while making this where I added something I liked but later forgot what show the song was from, then couldn’t look it up because Spotify won’t let you copy the Japanese to search. So, you may have to count, but in case you hear something you enjoy and want to check out the series, I’ve prepared a written list of the shows each song is from. I’ve also mirrored the list on YouTube so you can watch the actual title sequences too. YT quality isn’t as consistent though, and I don’t pay for premium so I get ads and issues with play-in-picture mode. The plus side is these are mostly the 1:30 min tv edits which I’d base any instrumentals on, and not everyone is on Spotify anyway. You can contact me on YT or discord if you have any questions or find mistakes.

    After the anime name, “op” means opening, “ed” means ending, and “ost” means original soundtrack. A number indicates which season, if there is none, it should be the first (or only) theme. I may have messed up some of the romanji, but hopefully you can find whatever you’re looking for.

    Track: Anime title op/ed/ost – Song name by Artist

    1. Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt ed – Fallen Angel by Mitsunori Ikeda feat Aimee B
    2. Call of the night ed – Yofukashino uta by Creepy Nuts 
    3. Ya boy kongming op – chitty chitty bang bang by queendom 
    4. Oshi no ko op – idol by yoasobi
    5. Spy x Family op2 – Souvenir by Bump of Chicken 
    6. Revolutionary girl utena – Rondo Revolution by Shoko Nakagawa 
    7. Neon Genesis Evangelion – A Cruel angels thesis by Yoko Takahashi
    8. Darling in the Franxx op – Kiss of Death by Mika Nakashima
    9. Rising of the Shield Hero op – Rise by Madkid
    10. Hunter x Hunter op – Departure! by Masaroshi Ono
    11. Humanity has declined op – Real World by Nano.ripe
    12. Erased op – Re: re: by Asian Kung Fu Generation
    13. Gintama op – Pray by Tommy Heavenly6
    14. Nana op – Rose by Anna Tsuchiya 
    15. Non non biyori op – Nanairo Biyori by nano.Ripe
    16. Non non biyori ost – Ren-chan and a sunny road by Hiromi Mizutani 
    17. Serial Experiments Lain – Duvet by boa
    18. Bakemonogatari op2 – Kaerimichi (Road Home) by Emiri Kato 
    19. Bakemonogatari op4 – Ren’ai Circulation by Kana Hanazawa
    20. Red ranger in another world ed – Explosive Heart by Uchida Aya
    21. Is the order a rabbit? Op2 – No Points! by petit rabbit’s
    22. Is the order a rabbit? Ed2 – Tokimeki poporon by Chimame-tai
    23. Haiyore Nyaruko-San W op – Love is the servant of chaos by ushirokarahaiyoritai G
    24. March comes in like a lion op2 – Goodbye Bystander by YUKI
    25. Keep your hands off eziouken op – Easy Breezy by chelmico 
    26. So I’m a spider, so what? ed – Ganbare! Kumoko-san by Aoi Yuuki
    27. Welcome to the NHK ed – Dance baby human by Otsuki Kenji and Kitsutaka Fumihiko 
    28. Cowboy Bebop ed – The real folk blues by Mai Yamane 
    29. Jojo’s Bizzare Adventure: phantom blood op – Jojo soon chido sadame by Hiroaki Tommy Tominaga
    30. Cromartie High (mechazawa’s humming song) – Ningen Nante by Takuro Yoshida
    31. (YT only) Cromartie High School op – Jun by Takuro Yoshida
    32. Ranma ½ op – (Ya) jajauma ni sasenaide by Etsuko Nishio
    33. Fushigi Yuugi op – itooshi hito tame ni by Satou Akemi 
    34. Dragon Ball op – makefushigi adventure by Hiroki Takahashi
    35. Project A-Ko ed – Follow your dream by Valerie Stevenson
    36. Zeta gundam ed – Believe by Mami Ayukawa
    37. Armored trooper votoms op – Honoo no Sadame by TETSU
    38. Bubblegum Crisis op – Konia wa Hurricane by Kinuko Ohmori
    39. Outlaw star ed – Hiro no Tsuki by Akino Arai
    40. Hakumei to Mitochi op – chima by urar 
    41. Laid back camp op3 – Laid back journey by Kimi no ne
    42. My deer friend shikanoko op – shikario days by Deer Club 
    43. Let this grieving soul retire ed – Scream by pmaru sama
    44. Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear ed – anone by Yuna
    45. Catch me at the ballpark ed – Shake! Don’t shake! by ruriko, aona, and sara 
    46. Food for the souls ed – Miso soup and butter by Reira Ushio
    47. Heaven’s design team op – Give it up? by kuroneko 
    48. Shimoneta: A boring world where dirty jokes don’t exist ed – Inner Urge by Sumire Uesaka
    49. Go go loser ranger op – Preview of Me by Tatsuya Kitani
    50. Excel Saga op – Ai (chuuseishin) by Excel Girls
    51. Gunslinger girl op – The light before we land by The Delgados
    52. Escaflowne op – Yubiwa by Maaya Sakamoto
    53. Kino’s Journey op – all the way by mikuni shimokawa
    54. Domestic Girlfriend op – Kawaki to Ameku by Minami
    55. Your lie in April ed – wacci by  kirameki
    56. Love, chunnibyo, and other delusions op – sparkling daydream by zaq
    57. Chobits op – Let me be with you by Round Table feat nino
    58. Konosuba op2 – tomorrow by machico
    59. Witch Hunter Robin op – Shell by Bana
    60. Ergo proxy op – kiri by Monoral
    61. To your eternity op – Pink Blood by Hikaru Utada 
    62. Mushishi op – The sore feet song by Ally Kerr 
    63. Samurai Champloo op – Battlecry by Nujabes feat Shing02
    64. Mashle op – Bling-bang-bang-born by Creepy Nuts 
    65. Dan Da Dan op – Otonoke by Creepy Nuts
    66. Shangri-la Frontier op2 – Danger, Danger by FZMZ, icy
    67. Negative positive angler ed – Shonen Yokkyu by kuroneko
    68. Pseudo Harem ed – Ad lib by Nanakura Rin
    69. Apocalypse Hotel op – Skirt by aiko 
    70. Apocalypse hotel ost – Welcome to hotel “Gingaru” by Yoshiaki Fujisawa
    71. Baccano! op – Guns and Roses by Super Soul Bros
    72. Campfire Cooking in another world with my absurd skill op – Luxury Spoon by Van de Shop
    73. Delicious in Dungeon op2 – unmei by sumika
    74. Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid op – Rhapsody of Blue Sky by fhana 
    75. Space dandy op – Viva namida by Yasuyuki okamura
    76. Kaguya-sama love is war op – Daddy daddy do by Masayuki Suzuki 
    77. Cowboy bebop op – Tank! by Seatbelts 
    78. Birdy the Mighty Decode ed – Let’s go together by Afromania 
    79. Great Teacher Onizuka op – Driver’s high by L’arc en Ciel
    80. Tsukimichi -moonlit fantasy- op – gambling by syudou
    81. The melancholy of haruhi suzumiya ost – god knows by Aya hirano
    82. Ninja and assassin under one roof op – Yarenno? Endless by Kana Hanazawa
    83. Re:zero ed1 – Styx Helix by Myth and Roid
    84. Overlord III op – Voracity by Myth and Roid
    85. Dorohedoro op – Welcome to Chaos by (k)now_name
    86. Bocchi the rock op – seishun complex by kessoku band 
    87. Demon Slayer op – guruenge by LiSA
    88. Sword art online op – crossing field by LiSA
    89. Code Geass op – Colors by Flow
    90. Naruto op4 – Go by Flow
    91. Ping pong the animation – Tadahitori by bakudan Johnny 
    92. Death note op – the World by nightmare 
    93. Bleach op – Asterisk by Orange Range 
    94. One piece op – We are! by Hiroshi Kitadani
    95. That time I got reincarnated as a slime op – nameless story by Takuma Tereshima
    96. Spice and wolf op – Tabi no Tochuu by Natsumi Kiyoura
    97. Made in abyss op – Deep in Abyss by Miyu Tomita
    98. Mushoku Tensei – Tabibito no Uta by Yuiko Ohara 
    99. .hack//sign ed – yasashii yoake by see-saw 
    100. .hack//sign op – obsession by see-saw
    101. Ghost in the shell op – the birth of a cyborg by Kenji Kawai
    102. Texhnolyze op – guardian angel by Juno reactor 
    103. From Bureaucrat to villainess: Dad’s been reincarnated ed – Matsuken Samba by Inoue Kazuhiku and MAO
    104. Pokémon op – Pokémon Theme (Gotta catch em all!) by Jason Paige

  • Not all who wander…

    On one hand:

    “If you fail to plan, plan to fail”

    on the other:

    “If you don’t care where you’re going, it doesn’t matter what road you take.”

    Upon reflection, it became very clear to me that I like practicing and performing music more than recording and blogging about the process. So, instead of doing weekly updates like last time, I just learned and performed a new set:

    These are all songs from 2020-2025 that I picked out of a massive playlist of “hits” so I could get a better sense of what modern popular music is like. I’ll post the setlist timestamps and charts at the end of this post (they’re also in the video description). When I say jpop here I actually mean anisong, but I didn’t want to go through that whole explanation lol.

    This performance isn’t as clean, but I had a much more enjoyable and stress-free experience. I’m sure the right way to grow the audience would be to break each song into its own video and drip feed them to the algorithms, but ugh. Editing and uploading and spamming feeds is not my idea of fun. For now, fun matters more.

    I also realized that I’ve put off telling my full story a little too long. I’ve added it to the About Me section on the About page, and will hopefully summarize it for the next video for the channel.

    In the time that I’ve just been chilling and doing my own thing, I’ve started to form a new idea of the direction to take this project, so I’ve started to write the plan out for that. Please look forward to it.

    I’ve also been making steady progress with the voice lessons and playing jazz. That’s been a lot of fun, but it also takes up a lot of brain power. Hopefully next up is a proper jazz set. These songs are taking a lot more effort to learn though.

    Oh, I also acquired a new Fanner electric ukulele, which I posted a bit about on the channel and did a mini blog of the experience over on the Ukulele Underground forums. I really like it, though I think I still prefer the Sparrow overall.

    Speaking of UU, I have been participating in their weekly song challenges which I mostly post as unlisted videos, though they all can be viewed on this public playlist of challenge songs.

    So, that’s the update for now. I’m hoping soon I’ll have my plan together and can start working toward that bigger goal again. And I hope you’ll join me on this journey as well.

    Charts for the Modern Pop set songs: https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/playl…

    Timestamps

    0:00 Intro

    1:03 Too Sweet by Hozier

    4:26 Blinding Lights by The Weeknd

    7:40 Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter

    11:09 Play with Fire by Nico Santos

    14:10 Birds of a Feather by Billie Eilish

    18:08 Lose Control by Teddy Swims

    22:33 A bar song (Tipsy) by Shaboozey

    25:36 I like the way you kiss me by Artemas

    28:13 Austin by Dasha

    30:46 August by Taylor Swift

    34:27 Die With a Smile by Bruno Mars (feat Lady Gaga)

    38:19 Stick Season by Noah Kahan

    41:31 I Had Some Help by Post Malone

    44:20 Mood by 24KGoldn

    47:05 Heat Waves by Glass Animals

    50:42 Good Luck Babe by Chappell Roan

    54:31 Ghost in the Machine by SZA

  • Next steps…

    A goal without a plan is but a dream. Dream’s are fine, but they as free and plentiful as the stars. We can dream as much as we like. There’s nothing wrong with chasing a dream, holding to a dream, or letting go of one at any time. After all, they are just the flickers of imagination that fill our head at night.

    An issue only arises when we start wanting to make our dreams a reality. For most, dreams are challenges that lie beyond the reach of ordinary effort – if it were easy we’d just get it already. I have found that when I want to get from here to there in the most effective way possible, a plan is an indispensable tool.

    A plan begins with a goal. What are we trying to achieve? We identify the conditions for success. Then we look at all the obstacles in the way, and then how to overcome those. Without being explicitly written out, its easy for things to slip between the cracks. After all, the goal is a challenge because we are reaching for something our grasp.

    When we put the plan in motion, we get feedback so that we can better choose how to spend our limited time and energy to get to where we want to be. It’s important to have the solid description of what was tried so we know what works to repeat, and what to change to do better next time.

    Of course, I’m writing all this now because I have no plan. And I’m doing this instead of writing a plan because I don’t know what my goal is. I find myself in a post-sprint exhaustion wherein I’ve accomplished my initial goal and am uncertain of the direction I want to go from here.

    In truth I wanted to have the plan written out before starting this blog so I could hit the ground running and not look back. But I kept putting that off to the point where I decided it would probably serve me to just jump in and play it by ear.

    That balance of rigidity to flexibility is always a difficult thing to maintain. Sometimes just going for it works out. Done is always better than perfect. Reality always trumps fantasy. Now I have a blog, instead of just vague dreams of a blog.

    And so here I am caught in between breaths not knowing which direction to take. There’s nothing wrong with just doing whatever feels right, but it’s hard to maintain the momentum to overcome difficult challenges when there’s no shining light at the end of the tunnel. This week’s offering is exactly that: a half-assed interpretation of a song I’d like to play, but was not willing to put in the effort to do it properly.

    Doing it “properly” means learning how and why this song that I like works, and brings me a step closer to understanding how the musician I admire created it. Instead, I just churn out what sounds “close enough” to me and is fun and easy for me to play. I like it enough to share, but it doesn’t push me closer to any specific goal.

    Here’s the real song:

    Right now I just have a general goal at getting better at playing ukulele, and any playing can be considered a step in the right direction. But its a stark contrast to having a set of repertoire to polish up to “performance ready.” I felt the improvement, and felt the accomplishment for the work I did over the past few months, but where to go from here is unclear.

    I have a thing where I try continuously have to realign my ideas of “what I want” with “what I actually do.” For example: I think and say that “I want to be a better ukulele player” and so I practice daily. But the way that I practice by default is not in a way that moves me toward the direction of the “better ukulele player” that I want to be. Objectively, these actions reflect that I “just want to have fun making noise” instead of becoming a “better player.”

    At the start of the year I set a goal to polish up a set that I could take to play by a pool. I made a plan to focus on three songs a week, followed through on the plan, and feel like I now have a set that I could play in public. It was freaking hard. I never put in that kind of work before to become a better player, and without a hard challenge I’m slipping back into my default practice habits.

    But that’s the kind of “better player” I want to be. I want to be able to proudly play in public. Maybe? Maybe not, since I’m not doing it. I need to get out of my house and try it out more, but my physical condition makes it an somewhat risky activity. There’s a rather high chance that I will wind up with nausea and a harsh migraine that will last for several days if I dare to push my physical limits.

    There’s a lot of music I’m interested in being able to play too. I still have all the anime music instrumentals I want to learn to play. I’ve picked up some new modern pop songs and some new older pop songs to extend the performance set. There’s a handful of jazz standards that are entering my repertoire. I’ve even managed to play an hour’s worth of instrumentals, albeit at a lower level of polish than performance set.

    Going outside to perform might be worth the risk. I can get it if I really want, but I must try, try, and try. If I really want to “get there” someday, I need another plan. I need to find where “there” is. Then I can try to find the right path to travel. Just, where is it that I want to go? What is worth putting all the effort and energy into?

    Why not just chill and not worry about it and watch more isekai?

  • Lovesong by The Cure (instrumental + tutorial)

    Here’s one idea I had of how to move forward so I’m giving it a go.

    Direct link to download the tab

    You may have noticed that my instrumental interludes were a constant point of struggle during my performance set focus. If you ever want to improve at something, all you need to do is pay more attention to it. So I spent the time to write it all out and learn it all as an instrumental piece. My original intent for this entire project was to get good at transcribing and playing instrumentals, but I just kept singing so, here we are.

    You may also notice that I don’t play it as written in the tab. I explain this in the “tutorial” but also I just gave up on trying to write out the little ornamentations that I do because I change them all the time anyway. It sort of just depends on how I’m feeling on a particular day. There are times when strict adherence to the music is appropriate, but I have a feeling it would just add unnecessary complexity here? The tab is mostly for you fine folk out there, so please do let me know how you feel about it.

    Also writing out the whole form of the song would make the tab several pages longer of mostly repeated stuff (or with some fancy notation tricks like second endings and coda’s and stuff). So I highly recommend just listening to the song and using the tab more like a lead sheet to suggest how to create the performance you want to give.

    I don’t typically watch YouTube videos to learn songs, so this is kind of a new world for me. In fact, I find it difficult to even watch that stuff, so I definitely feel a little strange trying to do it myself. I also haven’t done the proper research to see how successful and properly trained educators do it. But whatever. I’ll try on the hat and see if my own style resonates with anyone first.

    Sort of like the singing, being a teacher was not front and center in my plans. I definitely see myself as an intermediate level player at best, so I don’t really feel like I’m in a position to be a proper educator. At the same time, I recognize that part of sharing my journey is to connect with people at or approaching my level, so it seems proper to at least try. Who knows, I might like it. You might like it. It can only benefit me to learn how to explain what I’m doing more effectively.

    Anyway, comments are turned off here, so if you feel like offering any feedback or advice, please use the YT comments or find me on the Uke Tribe Discord. Thank you kindly!

  • Hana hou, and where do we go from here?

    First thing first, I totally missed this song in the set because I got distracted by the dying battery. While I’m not as on point as I was last week, here’s the current state of Lovesong:

    At the end of every great arc in anime there’s a come-down period. When the show is really great and it ends, some may experience post-anime depression where all that time engaged in an amazing adventure is suddenly replaced with… nothing.

    Having made it through my initial experiment, I find myself in an uncertain position. I didn’t prepare the next step ahead. Do I wander around in a filler arc for a bit? Do I pick an arbitrary direction to start working toward? I’m not sure. One thing I am sure of is that I don’t want to do the same kind of sprint I just did again. I am exhausted. Taking a little time off for a break seems like a pretty valid choice too.

    In fact, that’s what I did this week. Though its been on my mind, I haven’t been actively worrying about it too much. Naturally this leaves me with a lack of a solution when its time to update the blog again, but whatever. This is about my journey, so I’ll be real about it.

    Instead of deciding what my next musical goal will be, I re-watched a season of Arifureta and dove into season 3 that just wrapped up. What an amazingly trash isekai. Op protag? Check. Horny harem? You bet. Self-aware chunni? Oh yeah. A great recipe to turn the brain off and not sweat the details of real life. Actually, I’m thinking of transcribing the ending theme for S2 because that song is actually pretty nice.

    Here’s to a little vacation back in isekai land~